Hands-on with the Samsung Galaxy Gear

Decent hardware that will have some serious compatibility concerns.

NEW YORK—Today Samsung officially pulled the curtain back on the Galaxy Gear smartwatch, and the good news is that it doesn't look quite as bad as the earlier leaked prototype. The watch is designed to be a companion accessory for a smartphone, and it connects over Bluetooth for a data connection, bringing you notifications and phone calls.

A Samsung representative takes us through the various features that come with the Galaxy Gear.

Now for the really, really bad news about the Galaxy Gear: it's only compatible with Samsung smartphones that run Android 4.3. That's pretty crippling. The silver lining is that the 4.3-and-up requirement means it will take advantage of 4.3's ability to send out notifications to other devices. Notifications should be remotely dismissible, fast, and have decent compatibility across apps.

All told, it was hard to get a feel for the Galaxy Gear at an event like this. Samsung had them locked down with huge security attachments that made it impossible to judge whether two of my primary concerns about a smartwatch—the thickness and heaviness—would be a factor on the Gear. The first two layers you see in the photo make up the actual watch, the bottom part is a solid steel security attachment. The other problem is that one of the primary forms of input is voice recognition, which is just not going to work in a noisy room. A smart watch is definitely something you need to spend some serious time with to judge.

The interface prioritizes the built-in apps as several one-icon, swipeable screens. The whole setup reminds me a lot of Google Glass. Any third-party apps go in an "all apps" bucket that shows a 2x2 grid. The main functions are Calls Log, Contacts, a watch face, Notifications, Voice Memo, S Voice, Gallery, Music, a pedometer, and, of course, settings. The swipe-down gesture functions as Android's typical Back button, and any menu duties are handled with an on-screen menu button in the top right corner. The Gear runs some form of Android underneath all the skinning, but Samsung wouldn't specify which version.

The voice recognition is handled by the Nuance-powered S Voice. The intuitiveness here leaves a lot to be desired; a few of us were playing with it, and no one could figure out when S Voice was loading, listening, or processing—we were just never sure what it was doing. Most of these voice recognition apps show some kind of sound visualization when they're listening, but this did no such thing.

The music app displayed simple play, previous, and next buttons, along with the name of the song. The other pictures show off the extremely simple pedometer readout and the "About" screen.

The Gear has a 1.63 inch, 320x320 touchscreen, which clocks in around 277DPI. That's not the ridiculous pixel density we're used to, but it's perfectly serviceable. The watch casing is made from stainless steel, and the band comes in six different colors, all of which are made of a textured, rubbery plastic. I wear a watch as jewelry, so something like a steel, sectioned band would have been nice. The colored plastic makes the watch look like a toy. Samsung did spring for ultra-hard sapphire glass, which should be nigh-unscratchable.

Of course, the watch makes phone calls, thanks to the tethered smartphone signal, a built-in speaker, and a microphone. This was a noisy environment, but the speaker sounded pretty terrible. The person trying it had to hold the watch up to her ear to hear anything, but of course, this is something we'll have to try in a quieter location.

Manufacturers can't seem to release anything anymore without cramming a camera into it, and the Gear is no exception. Integrated into the strap is a 1.9MP camera. Considering this requires a smartphone to function, and all smartphones have cameras, was this really necessary? And a 1.9MP camera? How badly do you want to take a picture of something? They could have skipped the camera and made the Gear fit a normal (classier) watch band.

Here you can also see the ribbing around the band and the overall cartoony look of a colored, rubberish watch band. This is a Samsung rep's wrist, and there's no security block on the bottom, so you can get a feel for how thick the Gear really is.

The band has a folding-style clasp mechanism that could almost be from a real watch. The only bad part about it seems to be the way the clasp attaches onto the rubbery plastic band: it uses teeth and pressure.

Samsung has put together a minimal spec list that leaves many unanswered questions: What kind of processor does it have? What version of Android does it run? We'll have to wait until we get one in our hands to find out.

Safety assistance: In case of emergency, press a power button 3 times continuously, and then user’s location information is transferred to the saved contacts with message.

2 Microphones (Noise Cancellation), 1 Speaker

Connectivity

Bluetooth v 4.0 ＋ BLE

Sensor

Accelerometer, Gyroscope

Memory

4GB internal memory ＋ 512 MB RAM

Dimension

36.8 x 56.6 x 11.1 mm, 73.8g

Battery

Standard battery, Li-ion 315mAh

We'll need a lot more time with the Galaxy Gear to figure out if it's any good or not. A public event is pretty much the worse-case scenario for a smartwatch demo. Crowded airwaves, a noisy environment, huge security tethers, and locked down demo phones don't make for the best evaluation setting.

I have serious concerns about all the Samsung lock-in that this requires. You'd have to use all of Samsung's apps to make any use of it at all, so this watch living or dying will depend totally on Samsung's software prowess, which hasn't been spectacular in the past. Just testing this watch would require me to switch just about every primary app I use from a Google version to a Samsung version. If you're all-in with the Samsung ecosystem and none of this concerns you, the Gear should be available for $299 in early October.

I'll leave the serious judgement for when I can spend more time with it. We'll have much more to say once review units come in. They are coming, right Samsung?

Looks like an 80's business man's watch was smashed into a mcdonalds toy watch... But maybe it'll look better when actually worn/in person. It's a bit surprising they didn't try to go for a style that looked a bit more futuristic, rather than something a lot of smartphone owners would associate with a device (watch) their father wore.

I don't know if I'm in a minority or majority here, but I'm kind of missing the point of a smartwatch. There doesn't seem to be anything that they can do that the cellphone in my pocket doesn't do better.

I don't know if I'm in a minority or majority here, but I'm kind of missing the point of a smartwatch. There doesn't seem to be anything that they can do that the cellphone in my pocket doesn't do better.

I'm with you - I'm fine with checking the time on my phone and getting notifications on the screen. I don't need this thing.

I don't know if I'm in a minority or majority here, but I'm kind of missing the point of a smartwatch. There doesn't seem to be anything that they can do that the cellphone in my pocket doesn't do better.

I don't think there is a minority or majority yet. But the advantage is not having to take your phone out of your pocket. It's more convenient for small, quick checks. I'd hazard the call feature would be far more useful with a headset of some sort; rather a lot of people have wired headsets they use for music, and being able to make a call without actually jacking with the phone might be attractive if you already have the headset (wired or otherwise) in.

It's early and they know it. Releasing into the wild will give them valuable know how and an edge over other determined competitors. Wonder how long until this is hacked to work with non Samsung or even apple devices...?

Even if I were in the target market, the way the microphone icon is clipped by the screen edge/bezel in the first of the gallery images would make it a non-starter for me.

Poor attention to detail, IMHO.

I don't think it's clipped, I think that's the design.

I agree. Also, I find it a little weird that the design of a single on-screen icon would make the whole thing a non-starter for someone. Unless maybe Anadromous assumed everything would be clipped like that?

would love a bluetooth-paired watch, but no way am i going to buy anything tied to a particular manufacturer.... i really despise being pressured to declare allegiance to one company in particular, because once i do that, they have my balls in a jar.

I don't know if I'm in a minority or majority here, but I'm kind of missing the point of a smartwatch. There doesn't seem to be anything that they can do that the cellphone in my pocket doesn't do better.

I don't think there is a minority or majority yet. But the advantage is not having to take your phone out of your pocket. It's more convenient for small, quick checks. I'd hazard the call feature would be far more useful with a headset of some sort; rather a lot of people have wired headsets they use for music, and being able to make a call without actually jacking with the phone might be attractive if you already have the headset (wired or otherwise) in.

Can't headsets be used to place calls already? I know you can on iPhones with the included ear buds, and fairly certain bluetooth headsets can on iOS, but I'm not sure about in Android-land... I'd assume they could. So that use case doesn't make a huge amount of sense to me.

I'm sure there are some use cases where this would be super handy (if your hands are largely occupied, but you want to see what that notification you just got was...), but nothing that'd seem common enough to warrant buying a moderately expensive device you'll have to wear constantly (and plug in at night!).

Even if I were in the target market, the way the microphone icon is clipped by the screen edge/bezel in the first of the gallery images would make it a non-starter for me.

Poor attention to detail, IMHO.

I don't think it's clipped, I think that's the design.

I agree. Also, I find it a little weird that the design of a single on-screen icon would make the whole thing a non-starter for someone. Unless maybe Anadromous assumed everything would be clipped like that?

I believe he is saying that because having such a glaring error (assuming it was an error... I don't see why they'd do that intentionally, it looks really weird to me) would be a big sign that there hadn't been much QA behind the product, and that it was rather slapped together.

I wear a watch. I prefer the convenience of the time at a glance (vs getting phone out of the pocket which also requires free hands) as well as the jewellery factory.And the body looks surprisingly good compared to the prototypes I've seen, but I cannot understand why they went with a plastic band?Stainless face + stainless band (or at worst leather band) or plastic face + plastic band, but stainless face + plastic band looks plain stupid!

I don't know if I'm in a minority or majority here, but I'm kind of missing the point of a smartwatch. There doesn't seem to be anything that they can do that the cellphone in my pocket doesn't do better.

True, but I'd like to be able to check who's calling or messaging during a meeting, without checking my phone. Taking your phone out can be rude and distracting to others, but checking your watch is subtle enough to go unnoticed.

The device looks cheap and rushed, especially when I compare it to one of the other devices that are coming available, the Pebble or Sony watch. Being limited to Samsung phones on A4.3 just makes it even more useless.

The navigation looks the be annoying and difficult to use as well.

I think I will stick with a more generic device (and wait with impatience for my new Pebble to arrive)

"Okay, our Windows 7 laptops are great. We don't really have any complaints to settle anymore.""But...but we want to innovate! How about HYBRIDS that turn into tablets! We'll base an entire operating system around it!"

"Okay, our gaming consoles are great. We don't really have any complaints to settle anymore.""But...but we want to innovate! How about voice-controls! Motion controls! A touchpad on the controller!...Touchpads are popular, right?"

"Okay, our smartphones are great..."

I apologize for being a bit too tongue-in-cheek, because I'm glad the tech industry is TRYING to innovate with new things, and some of those improvements are genuine steps up (if small ones). We shouldn't stop thinking of new things. But we seem to have run into a number of walls on all fronts, where the technology we use every day is all perfectly usable, we're connected to everything everywhere we go, and any advancements would hardly be must-haves.

Even if I were in the target market, the way the microphone icon is clipped by the screen edge/bezel in the first of the gallery images would make it a non-starter for me.

Poor attention to detail, IMHO.

I don't think it's clipped, I think that's the design.

I agree. Also, I find it a little weird that the design of a single on-screen icon would make the whole thing a non-starter for someone. Unless maybe Anadromous assumed everything would be clipped like that?

I mean, it is clipped by design. That being the case, presumably the design choice/language is trying to say something to me. And whatever it is, I'm not hearing it. Instead I feel like they just missed with the icon placement, but could not be bothered to fix it. Giving me a negative impression of the care and thought that went into the whole device.

It seems to me that they spend all this space and power on having a huge (for a watch) and bright screen, but then all the pictures show hardly anything displayed. One big icon at a time? Even the minimalistic clock face is just a few dots and lines. I don't get it. Maybe this is exaggerated because the pictures are larger than life, but the amount of white space (which is black of course) seems very high.

My other impression is that... with all we've learned about privacy issues lately... I don't know that I am comfortable even having a camera on a device like this. I think I would prefer if it didn't have one at all. If it does have one, I would rather have a physical cover over it. Yes, my phone has a camera, but it can't see much from inside its case or my pocket.

I don't know if I'm in a minority or majority here, but I'm kind of missing the point of a smartwatch. There doesn't seem to be anything that they can do that the cellphone in my pocket doesn't do better.

In early 2010, most people were missing the point of a tablet too. Look what's happened now.

Samsung's attempt is a huge meh for me, but that doesn't mean I won't find a point in other smartwatches in the future.

This is exactly what everyone was worried about with the Samsung watch. The absolute kitchen sink approach to features. A smart watch that is going to be tethered to a phone doesn't need a ton of features, you have a phone to fall back on which is better suited to a wide variety of tasks. A narrowly tailored feature set like the Pebble or Torq seems far more interesting than this fully featured cell phone on your wrist.

Unlike many I see the use case of a smart watch, being able to triage notifications without having to pull my phone out of my pocket is very worthwhile. Is that on its own worth the price of admission? Probably not, but there is a lot of interesting potential in a smart watch for developers to exploit once they catch on.

I've been wearing a Pebble for a few months now, and I'm always keen to check out a fancy new gadget, but this one really seems to check all the wrong boxes for me.

- It's great having a second screen on your wrist, but $300 is IMHO way too much for the convenience of leaving your phone in your pocket occasionally.

- 24 hr battery life (at best)? And you have to take it off your wrist, clip it into a little dock thing, plug that into microUSB every single night? Death right there. I can just about put up with the extra inconvenience of charging my Pebble once a week, and that's definitely easier. Maybe if it had a wireless charging mat you could leave it on.

- The camera is worse than pointless.

- My Pebble won't win any awards, but this thing makes it look sleek and stylish.

- Colour touch screen is nice, but I'd rather have the battery life.

- More apps than I expected. Haven't seen them in action, but I can't say anything jumps out at me as really suiting a wrist screen, beyond basic notifications and music control.

- The mic is pretty much the only thing I wish my Pebble had. Doubt I'd make calls, but dictating texts and voice control would be very nice, in some circumstances.

- Only for a single Samsung phone running 4.3? By the time any sizeable market can use it, it'll be completely outclassed. And at that price as well, it's doomed to a tiny niche.

I wear a Timex Ironman Sleek watch. It blows up (band destruction, button stiffness) every 14-18 months. But during that time I don't have to do a thing to it. I take it swimming. I bump it into walls. It fits under my shirt cuffs without problem. It always displays the time. It just works. And it costs around $40, so I keep a spare in the closet for the eventual hardware failure.

When I leave my phone at home, the watch doesn't track me and feed my whereabouts back to the Feds or some Moldovan hacker.

Please tell me again why I should want some just-past-breadboard 'smart' watch.

$300 price point. I get that its paying the cost for bleeding edge tech along with the R*&D costs. It doesn't change the fact that its a supplemental device. Not a replacement. And also Glass is out next year. Of the devices I'd be willing to spend a large chunk of money. (Truth be told easily more then $300.) Glass would be it. However the max out of pocket for a watch I'd be willing to spend is $200. Period. No more. Because honestly. The device does more then I'm looking for. Guess what? Even with a car I can usually find a cheaper model if I don't want to go nuts with features.

S Voice. In my travels with S Voice on my Galaxy S3, I've learned to hate it. Google Now with its voice feature blows S away. And now I can't use it.

Bonus Reason: I'm in theory, jury is still out on just how extensive this will be, locked into a platform. Sorry. I avoided Apple for just that reason. The Minute I heard App store for this thing I got growly. I understand the nature of the form factor makes transitional apps difficult, but being tied to a Samsung phone and another app store? Totally pass. Especially since I expect a half dozen more of these things to be on the market by next Summer. Some of which I'd expect to be more cross phone brand friendly.

I wear a Timex Ironman Sleek watch. It blows up (band destruction, button stiffness) every 14-18 months. But during that time I don't have to do a thing to it. I take it swimming. I bump it into walls. It fits under my shirt cuffs without problem. It always displays the time. It just works. And it costs around $40, so I keep a spare in the closet for the eventual hardware failure.

When I leave my phone at home, the watch doesn't track me and feed my whereabouts back to the Feds or some Moldovan hacker.

Please tell me again why I should want some just-past-breadboard 'smart' watch.

Maybe you simply shouldn't want one.

I know I don't want a watch like yours, yet until this moment never felt the need to share. Every product doesn't have to be attractive to every person.

Bingo. That was my first thought when all he leaks occurred. Some little corner of my mind keeps thinking this was intended for a Spring launch, until the rumors started flying of the big bad Apple launching their own.

This is exactly what everyone was worried about with the Samsung watch. The absolute kitchen sink approach to features. A smart watch that is going to be tethered to a phone doesn't need a ton of features, you have a phone to fall back on which is better suited to a wide variety of tasks.

Exactly. And $10 say this is exactly what Apple's will do. Samsung missed the point of the product altogether: Its a supplemental device. Just as a phone is not designed to replace a laptop. People aren't going to spend $300 on such a device. Watch. I'll bet Apple's device will be between $150-$200. That is closer to impulse buy area. $300....no.

I really am perplexed by Samsung's thinking on this device. I feel sorry for the think tank dude who was announcing it. The guy was obviously proud of his device. But its going to fail at that price. And I question how low they can go with the amount of hardware they stuffed in there.

I don't think there is a minority or majority yet. But the advantage is not having to take your phone out of your pocket.

Or having to go get it from the other side of the house. My phone is almost always within Bluetooth range of me, but it's often not in my pocket. My Pebble, however, is always on my wrist. Being able to see who's calling or read my incoming texts even with the phone on the other side of the house is very convenient indeed.

sony smart-lens cool but tied to sony software, and sony software makes me say, "i hate you, i hate you, why do you make beautiful hardware so painful? you are a fucking sadistic prick you horrible piece of software." citation: minidisc software, CD walkman software. this is why i will wait on this: it looks cool, but sony has a history of crap, annoying software. i would really like an API of some sort... that way, they're free to do whatever, and i can throw away their install CD; tinker with it as i want to. everyone wins.

I sometimes wonder if the whole "Apple's going to make an iWatch" thing was a clever plant by Apple to flush out the tech bozos who'd actually try to build something so stupid.

And here we have Samsung, Google and a few others doing just that.

All the negatives of a smartphone combined with the negatives of a watch. Small screen, needs recharging every single day (I've heard much less from other sources), voice activation on a device you're going to use outdoors, the list of negatives just goes on.

Still, you're unlikely to drop this and shatter the screen, so there's a plus.

Contrary to the author's comments and those of some bloggers, I think the thick, jumbo design with bright plastic bands is awesomely suitable for the wrists of Galaxy phablet users and will totally impress their friends. No doubt we will see some Galaxy Girls wearing them as arm bracelets, and I imagine celebrity ads with Lindsey Lohan wearing one around her ankle.

Apple's will be thinner, simpler, more fashionable and have shorter battery life.

But probably not much more compelling.

Remember the guys that thought headsets made them awesome studs? They will be sporting all manner of watch phones.

I sometimes wonder if the whole "Apple's going to make an iWatch" thing was a clever plant by Apple to flush out the tech bozos who'd actually try to build something so stupid.

And here we have Samsung, Google and a few others doing just that.

All the negatives of a smartphone combined with the negatives of a watch. Small screen, needs recharging every single day (I've heard much less from other sources), voice activation on a device you're going to use outdoors, the list of negatives just goes on.

Still, you're unlikely to drop this and shatter the screen, so there's a plus.

you miss the big picture, grey duder. google goggle via via voice is often awkward. bluetooth in a wrist control, though... get it yet?

the watch becomes purely a control surface; the display is on your head. and suddenly, it's more discrete, less awkward, to google goggle gallantly.

I really struggle to imagine the target market for this product. Who, exactly, does Samsung think is going to buy it? Samsung certainly may have its share of loyal customers, but it has earned their loyalty by offering superior features/performance at a reasonable price. And the smart watch doesn't seem to do any job particularly well, at a price that eclipses that of a whole smartphone upgrade cycle.

Innovation means more than cramming features into a little package. Innovation also means knowing which engineering trade offs to make. A 24 hour battery life is an absolute non starter, as is the requirement that it works with a tiny fraction of the existing smartphone universe. If they'd found a way to pair it with $50 feature phones, and sold it for $99, given it four weeks of battery life, they'd have given the billion or so no smart phone owners a reason to get excited.

Apple transformed the MP3 player and smartphone businesses thanks to the click wheel and the capacitive touchscreen. The smart watch business, if it exists at all, needs a similar game changing interface breakthrough.

I will love if Apple doesn't come out with a watch next week. Basically, we could interpret that as "we're not going to do it until we can do it right...... and we don't think anyone's got it right, yet".

I like the idea of a smart watch, but so far all the ones I've seen are kinda "meh". I like Apple, but if they come out with one just as "meh", then I'll be leaving my $$$ in my wallet.

Shouldn't the absolute first bullet on the feature list be "make it look like something people actually want to wear around"? It's different than a phone or tablet in that regard. People care how their phone looks, but nowhere near as much as they care how their watch looks.

I would love to see a smart watch intro where the guy came out on stage and said "we figured the watch manufacturers have spent the last 100 years figuring out what people want a watch to look like... we basically made it look just like that.... only with a screen in the face. When it's in watch mode... it just looks exactly like a nice watch".

I suspect, unfortunately, that the first smart watch I feel "not meh" about will actually not look like a regular watch. But it will still have to be something with some style.

Ron Amadeo / Ron is the Reviews Editor at Ars Technica, where he specializes in Android OS and Google products. He is always on the hunt for a new gadget and loves to rip things apart to see how they work.